Yesterday I found bluebird feathers on our front porch. When I saw the feathers, I nearly cried. Picking them up, I walked around the house to the backyard nest I’ve been checking for days now. Sure enough, the nest was empty. The four baby bluebirds gone. They’d launched on a day I wasn’t ready. Didn’t lock the dogs up as I’d been doing in case they came out. Cami’s getting married and I spent the day on wedding work with friends. It’s hard not to get overwhelmed hosting your daughter’s three-hundred-people wedding.
I scanned the yard praying three small birds had made it. At least one baby I held in my hand. The tiny, broken feathers that I let fall to the ground beneath the nest. The thought rolled across my mind: you win some, you lose some. Something I’ve known in my head nearly all my life. Something I’m learning with my heart these days. Just two weeks ago we lost Mercy. This week the baby bluebirds. Close friends have moved away or fallen away this past year. I feel like weeping today, but the tears are so deep. Why is my heart so tied to bluebirds?
I’ll try to explain and it might be hazy.
Hazy because my relationship with bluebirds is like my relationship with God. I’m not sure when it started. And I’m not sure if I can make sense of it to you.  And it always feels under attack. My love affair with God. My love affair with bluebirds. So many enemies waiting to destroy the bright, little birds. Birds of light. Birds of joy. Birds of devotion. How I adore these winsome birds.
When I work in the yard the bluebirds follow me. Flying from fence post to fence post staying close as I weed and mow and water the lawn and flowers. Often when I look out one of our windows from inside the house there’s a bluebird on the post looking back at me. They don’t stay all year. The bluebirds come in the spring and leave in the fall, but when they are here, they are people birds. And because they are people birds they’re always in danger. Our dogs roaming the yard by day. Our cats stalking the yard by night. The English sparrows trying to steal their nests and peck the mommies to death. I try to protect the little bluebirds, but I can’t and it kills me. Only God can protect the bluebirds and God tends to allow feathers on our porch. Maybe not on the porch, but it’s always this way. Each year some baby bluebirds make it, some don’t. It’s like sifting sand through my fingers. Sand is not made to be sifted by fingers. I am not made to keep bluebirds.
And I cannot keep myself.
Twelve years ago, God and I made a deal. He would keep me and I would keep close. He always knows where I am, but I often have to look for Him the way I look for bluebirds.
On the day Mercy died our seven-year-old son said, “Mom I saw a bluebird.” That simple statement helped me. God was in this sad day.
A few weeks ago, my dad built a trellis over the gate in our front yard where Cami will stand to be married in less than two weeks. Yesterday we poured concrete, cementing the posts holding up the trellis. Several times the mommy and daddy bluebird summering in our yard have rested on the trellis as they’ve gone about their work catching grasshoppers in the lawn to feed their babies. Each time the bluebirds sit on the wedding trellis it reminds me that in all this wild wedding preparation, God is here. Watching us. Helping us. Loving us.
Trying to explain God’s ways is sometimes tough. Accepting His ways is often tougher. Death is always involved in God’s way. It was my uncle’s death two years ago that has made this big wedding day possible. He loved Cami. And left us the means to host the big celebration. Who would have thought death could bring joy? Only God.
So I watch for God and I watch for bluebirds.
Renewed with hope when they appear.